Russia's federal tax body could join a $22.5 billion lawsuit filed by Russian customs against the Bank of New York if a criminal case is launched against bank's representatives, a Tax Service spokesman said Tuesday.

The Federal Customs Service on May 17 accused the bank of laundering untaxed profits of Russian exporters in 1996-99 and said it had filed a damages lawsuit with the Moscow Arbitration Court.

"The Russian Federal Tax Service will get involved only if a criminal case is launched," the spokesman said.

Andrei Belyaninov, the head of the Federal Customs Service, said earlier he was optimistic about the prospects of his service's lawsuit against the bank, and saw no reason to give it up.

Experts doubt that customs authorities will recover the entire sum claimed, but lawyers acting for the service say their claim is legitimate, as the bank has admitted that $7.5 billion was laundered, and under U.S. law the plaintiff can demand compensation three times greater than the original loss.

The bank, which pleaded guilty to violating U.S. laws on control over financial flows in 2005 and was fined $38 million, dismissed the new claim.

New York Governor Eliot Spitzer, a former state attorney general who prosecuted some of the biggest firms in the United States, said on Tuesday that recent options trading ahead of takeovers was "deeply problematic."

In past months, announcements of proposed buyouts such as a $32 billion takeover of utility TXU Corp. (TXU.N: Quote, Profile, Research, Microsoft Corp.'s (MSFT.O: Quote, Profile, Research purchase of aQuantive Inc. (AQNT.O: Quote, Profile, Research and Rupert Murdoch's $5 billion offer for Dow Jones & Co. Inc. (DJ.N: Quote, Profile, Research, have been preceded by unusual spikes in options trading, raising questions about whether the news was leaked.

"Some smart prosecutor somewhere is going to be dropping a lot of subpoenas wanting to know who placed all these options purchased in the 48 to 72 hours before the deals were announced," Spitzer predicted in an interview on CNBC.

"There are a lot of people who should be very nervous about that," he said.

Authorities are already looking into some of these deals. Earlier in May, federal prosecutors in New York brought charges against a junior-level investment banker at Credit Suisse Group (CSGN.VX: Quote, Profile, Research, charging he divulged inside information on TXU and other yet-to-be-announced merger deals to a banker in Pakistan.

Also in May, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission filed a civil suit against a husband and wife in Hong Kong over trading in Dow Jones shares.

Options contracts give investors the ability to bet on a steep rise or decline in a stock price without having to put up the money to buy the actual shares.

As attorney general of New York, Spitzer made a name for himself by filing charges against famous individuals such as former American International Group Inc. (AIG.N: Quote, Profile, Research Chief Executive Maurice Greenberg.

He won a $10 billion settlement from the largest U.S. investment banks for biased research.

The trial is scheduled to start Monday before Superior Court Judge David DeAlba, who will decide the case without a jury.

Ford lost $12.7 billion last year, said Malcolm Wheeler, a Denver attorney who heads Ford's trial team. "This is a company that has had to lay off thousands of employees, a company struggling with a $3.5-billion negative net worth," Wheeler said.

Tab Turner - a Little Rock, Ark., lawyer who pioneered SUV rollover lawsuits - will be the plaintiffs' lead trial counsel in the Sacramento case. "This vehicle is one of the most dangerous vehicles ever produced in this country," said Turner, who first brought SUV rollover lawsuits involving the Ford Bronco II and Explorers.

Marketed as a replacement for family station wagons, the Explorers built in the 1990s have a tendency to flip over during evasive maneuvers at speeds over 40 mph, he said. Ford knew of the Explorer's problems but decided it was more profitable to produce the vehicle without changing its design, he said.

The class of plaintiffs includes California residents who bought, owned or leased a 1991-2001 model-year Ford Explorer, new or used, between 1990 and Aug. 9, 2000.

The plaintiffs' attorneys claim Ford's deception cost the state's car buyers about $500million because the value of their vehicles fell once the alleged defects became widely known. In addition, the plaintiffs are seeking a return of profits Ford earned from its alleged wrongdoing. According to the plaintiffs' lawyers, Ford reaped profits of $2.135 billion on sales in California from 1990 to 2000.

Ford lawyer Wheeler said it was the tires, not the Explorers, that were the problem and plaintiffs' lawyers were simply trying to extract millions more from Ford. He said the Explorer had been deemed safe by Consumer Reports magazine and the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. Out of 32 Explorer product-liability cases that had gone to trial, Ford had won 26 of them, he said.

An unusual vote on an issue perceived by many to be intensely political has once again sparked controversy over who the District 209 Board of Education turns to for legal advice.

During its regular monthly meeting on May 21, the board voted to dump the law firm Odelson and Sterk, and instead, retain the services of Giglio and Del Galdo. Both firms have donated bundles of cash to campaign efforts by board President Chris Welch and Melrose Park Mayor Ron Serpico, a major backer of Welch and Welch's political ally, Cook County Recorder of Deeds Eugene Moore.

Aside from the tangled web of political connections, the method by which Giglio and Del Galdo was hired is causing rumblings, as well. When the motion to hire the firm was made, it failed in a tie vote with board Secretary Sue Henry abstaining. After moving on to other business and without holding any further public discussion on the issue, Welch announced that Henry and another board member had changed their vote, thus awarding the district's business to Giglio and Del Galdo.

The vote to dismiss the law firm of Odelson and Sterk was taken prior to deciding whether to retain Giglio and Del Galdo. Both Henry and school board newcomer Robin Foreman said they changed their votes after realizing the district was left without a law firm to represent its interests.

Henry, an employee of Moore's at the county office, didn't explain specifically why she initially abstained.

"I just felt pushed at the time the vote was going down," Henry said.

Robert Cox, a newly elected board member from Forest Park, voted to bring in the new legal firm largely out of fiscal concerns, he said. Based on information provided by the superintendent, Cox said he understood that Odelson and Sterk was attempting to bilk the district out of money.

"Basically, they were billing for services that weren't requested but were being handed down," Cox said.

Superintendent Stan Fields declined to comment on the bills received by Odelson and Sterk, but said that changing law firms was a "business decision" in an effort to get a better value.

"During my nine month tenure I came to the conclusion that the school district would be better served with a different general counsel," Fields said.

A phone call to a managing partner in the law firm, Burt Odelson, was not returned.

Dating back to 1999, Burt Odelson and his managing partner Mark Sterk, have donated more than $19,700 to Proviso's school board president and his political allies, according to campaign filing records maintained by the state.

District 209's Director of Auxiliary Programs Kyle Hastings has taken in more than $14,000 in campaign money from the firm, according to the same state records. Hastings is also the mayor of Orland Hills.

Though less prolific, the managing partners of Giglio and Del Galdo have also been generous with area politicos. Since 2002, Joseph Giglio and Michael Del Galdo have given $19,500 to Serpico's campaign efforts and $1,500 to Welch. Illinois campaign disclosure records indicate the firm has given no money to Moore, the county recorder of deeds.

Welch, the school board president, did not return several phone calls seeking comment.

A little more than one year ago, the District 209 board wrestled with this very proposal, though no vote was taken at the time. At that meeting in April of 2006, board members accused one another of playing politics. In 2006, board member Charles Flowers said he had reservations with both law firms.

"I was all for firing (Odelson and Sterk), but I certainly wasn't interested in bringing in more crooked people," Flowers said after last year's debacle.

At the May 21 board meeting, Flowers voted to dismiss Odelson and Sterk, and then voted against hiring Giglio and Del Galdo. After board members Foreman and Henry reversed their original votes on whether to hire the new firm, Flowers was joined only by Theresa Kelly in the minority.

A lawyer for Vice President Dick Cheney told the Secret Service in September to eliminate data on who visited Cheney at his official residence, a newly disclosed letter states.

The Sept. 13, 2006, letter from Cheney's lawyer says logs for Cheney's residence on the grounds of the Naval Observatory are subject to the Presidential Records Act.

Such a designation prevents the public from learning who visited the vice president.

The Justice Department filed the letter Friday in a lawsuit by a private group, Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, seeking the identities of conservative religious leaders who visited Cheney at his official residence.

The newly disclosed letter about visitors to Cheney's residence is accompanied by an 18-page Secret Service document revealing the agency's long-standing practice has been to destroy printed daily access lists of visitors to the residence.

Separately, the agency says it has given Cheney's office handwritten logs of who visits him at his personal residence.

Because of pending lawsuits, the Secret Service says it is now keeping copies of all material on visitors to Cheney's residence. According to the Secret Service document, Cheney's office has approved the agency's retention of the records, while maintaining they are presidential records subject to Cheney's control.

''The latest filings make clear that the administration has been destroying documents and entering into secret agreements in violation of the law,'' said Anne Weismann, CREW's chief counsel.